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Maria Butina’s Lawyers: She’s Not a ‘Spy-Novel Honeypot’

They also claim that the accused Russian spy and Alexander Torshin were only friends.

In a new court filing, alleged Russian spy Maria Butina’s lawyers claim that their client isn’t the “spy-novel honeypot character” that the media has made her out to be. Rolling Stone reports that the filing adamantly insists that Butina is not a “Kremlin-trained seductress [who trades] sex for access and power,” while arguing that she is not a flight risk and the government is holding her on “weak evidence.” “She is a young woman of good character and with genuine ties to the United States through her five-year relationship with Paul Erickson,” the filing reads, referring to the GOP political operative whom U.S. prosecutors claim Butina hated living with. The filing also attempts to clarify that her alleged mentor, Russian central banker Alexander Torshin, was “actually just a friend.” The lawyers claim Butina carried around business cards naming her as Torshin’s “special assistant” so that she could “help with his travel arrangements while not being mistaken for a paid escort.” Her lawyers also said that Butina was acting on her own behalf when she worked her way into conservative circles and the National Rifle Association. They claimed Butina’s avid networking was similar to the actions of “hundreds of other foreign students and typical Washingtonian mid-twenty-somethings[.]”